The invention relates to the imaging arts. It finds particular application to an imaging system having an authentication system and method.
Some imaging devices such as printers may be capable of accepting print requests from an external network such as the Internet. These print requests are typically accepted for printing which potentially allows unauthorized requests to print messages such as Spam e-mail that consumes the resources of the printer. In a system where the printer is in a public location, for example in a hotel, a user is assumed to be an authorized user when the user directly connects to the printer, such as by a cable, to print a request. However, when the user sends the print request over the Internet to the same printer, authorization is more difficult to determine.
A new and useful method and system of imaging is provided that addresses the above problems.